Review: Caroline McEvoy: Train Man, Fringe 2025

What happens when the person you love is also the reason you had to leave? This is the central, and sometimes gut-punching, question at the heart of Caroline McEvoy’s Train Man.

Charting her escape from Northern Ireland to London, McEvoy offers a brutally honest and unflinching account of her relationship with her autistic brother, Jonathan. He is the titular ‘Train Man’, and this deeply personal hour wastes no time in laying the tracks for a story that is as complex as it is compelling.

Vibe

Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way first: if you are particularly sensitive to candid conversations about mental health and disability, Train Man might be a challenging ride. McEvoy is perfectly entitled to tell her own story, and her truth about living with an autistic sibling is unflinching. She is not afraid to call a spade a spade, recounting clearly difficult experiences. Yet, for all its frankness, the show is a surprisingly uplifting and heartfelt account of one woman’s search for a normal life, a theme McEvoy is as transparent and as brutal about with her own life as she is with her family’s.

The show itself

McEvoy is an independent force and clearly an experienced comic, bootstrapping her Edinburgh run without the backing of a large agency. Her style is refreshingly direct, laced with the kind of foul language that feels earned and authentic. She pokes fun at the English and the Irish, men and women, and the soulless tokenism of corporations, but her sharpest observations are reserved for her own life. A particular highlight was a tangent on how witches still exist today, rebranded as “wellness influencers”. Those worried about being singled out can relax; audience interaction is minimal.

The show is housed in the Roxyboxy, an intimate, purpose-built Fringe venue. It’s essentially a large metal box with seats – not glamorous, but clean, comfortable, and a perfect setting. The “up close and personal” nature of the space is perhaps the only way a show this raw could truly work, closing the distance between the comic and her audience. A few simple lighting changes are used effectively to punctuate the storytelling without being distracting.

As someone who keeps a sunflower lanyard tucked away in their backpack, I found the show resonated powerfully. The comedy stems from a truth that is sometimes brutal, and it was clear from the laughter that other disabled audience members felt the same.

Overall

Caroline McEvoy is a young talent with a unique voice. She offers a style of comedy that feels both safely familiar in its structure but refreshingly run-of-the-mill in its content.

This is a good Fringe show. If your festival timetable allows, Train Man is on time, on track, and well worth grabbing a ticket for the ride.